The 4T Organizing Process

My Grandmother Boren was the definition of ultra-organized. She was the type of grandma that the minute you sat your empty glass down at a family event, she whizzed by, picked it up, and had it washed and returned to the cupboard before you could refill it!

Of course, she didn’t have any modern amenities, like a dishwasher; so she had to wash the glasses by hand. Most of us can’t imagine life without a dishwasher, let alone a computer, voice mail, or e-mail.

Although my Grandmother Boren didn’t have the tools that we do now, her kitchen, her office (she had one even back then!), and all of the other rooms in her house were always organized and immaculate. How did she do it?

Even though tools have changed over the years, the process for organizing still remains the same. What is this process and how can it help you in your office or home? Allow me to introduce to you…

THE 4T ORGANIZING PROCESS™

The 4T Organizing Process™ is the essential guide to organizing your office, a closet, or even your garage. Let’s face it…we all know the story. We decide to start organizing our office. Mid-way through the process we realize that we have found something in the office closet that belongs in the pantry. So we head over to the pantry. When we get there we realize that it is a mess! So we start organizing the pantry. Mid-way through the pantry mess, we find something that belongs in the garage and take it to the garage. When we start to put it away in the garage, we realize that the garage is a mess and start taking things off the garage shelves. That’s when we realize that we now have three unorganized messes! Instead of going back to complete the office organizing, we are totally overwhelmed and we quit! Sound familiar?

The organizing process must be both methodical and organized for it to work. See the step-by-step process below:

Step 1: Take everything out. When you start organizing your desk, remove everything from the top of the desk and put it in crates, boxes, or on the floor. Start with what you feel the desk should look like when the process is complete and work backwards.

Step 2: Toss. When you are going through the paperwork and taking it off your desk, get rid of everything you can. Toss things that you are able to toss now instead of adding them to your stack of things that you will need to go through later.

Step 3: Tailor a system to your needs. Choose the organizing system that you will use for this process. This could be a tickler system, a better reference filing system, or a computerized filing program such as The Paper Tiger (www.thepapertiger.com). The best system depends on how much information you need to access and how much you are comfortable keeping.

Step 4: Take action. Once you have decided what you are going to do and what system you are going to use, you have to commit the time to do it! Set aside time on your calendar to complete the process with few interruptions. This may be best completed on a weekend, an early morning, or a late evening when others are not in the office and will not disrupt you.

Keep this system in mind for your next organizing project. Good luck!